The present invention relates generally to non-disinfectant cleaning products, and more particularly, to cleaning products having only naturally derived components without the need for surfactants. The formulated cleaning composition of the present invention exhibits no skin irritation unlike existing synthetically derived disinfecting/cleaning products, though somewhat environmentally degradable. These disinfecting/cleaning products are suspected of inducing negative biologic responses in the environment. For example, the rates of hospital acquired infections in health care facilities today are higher than they have been in decades.
The reliance on currently available disinfecting products to reduce pathogens from environmental surface/substrates to the levels claimed on labels has not been achieved in practice. Natural organic cleaners can be formulated into disinfectants but only with very low efficacy. As a result, the disease causing microorganisms are becoming more resistant to the point that the use of highly toxic disinfectants is being deployed in an attempt to clean hospital environments which in turn provides increasingly hazardous conditions for staff and patients alike. In particular, the dependence on the use and application of disinfectants to surface/substrates not only encourages surface/substrates to be left wet but as a consequence allows for ongoing microbial survival and growth. A typical example of the latter problem can be found in washroom soils that contain fecal contamination which spread disease through the fecal oral route. Touching soiled surface/substrates allows for the transfer of such contamination to additional surface/substrates. Today's washroom soils may include very resistant disease causing microorganisms including Clostridium difficile a spore forming bacteria spread by fecal contamination that only high concentrations of bleach and other hazardous sporicidal disinfectants are partly effective on. C. difficile like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is now commonly acquired in the community and is no longer just an issue in hospitals.
Existing disinfecting/cleaning practises have many drawbacks, for example, C. difficile can be spread from contaminated cleaning cloths, therefore, preventing the spread of disease causing microorganisms from cleaning cloths is a serious concern and requires a great deal of validation of the cleaning methods currently used. Accordingly, There is a need in the art to find an alternative formulated cleaning composition and method of use thereof to substantially reduce disease causing bacteria of all kinds in commercial and private areas including health care facilities, institutions, schools, at the office, at home and in food processing and manufacturing plants. Moreover, there is a need in the art for a new process and a new non-disinfectant cleaning formulation having natural components that exhibit excellent low skin toxicity, high clearance of microbiological pathogens accompanied with a high environmental degradability or biodegradability.
The present invention removes itself from the current understanding and practice of how best to clean areas in need thereof and accordingly provides a better alternative both in the type of formulated cleaning composition and it's use.